Qualla: Reginald Warneford

Reginald Warneford: Introduction

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. He had ten days. On the morning of 7 June 1915, Flight Sub-Lieutenant Reginald Alexander John Warneford, 23 years old, attacked the German Army Zeppelin LZ 37 in the air above Ghent and brought it down in flames - the first Victoria Cross awarded for the destruction of an airship in aerial combat. On the morning of 17 June, having just received the Legion d'honneur from General Joffre in Paris, he climbed into a Farman biplane at the aerodrome at Buc, southwest of Versailles, to ferry it back to his squadron. The right-hand wings collapsed during the climb. Neither he nor his passenger - an American journalist named Henry Beach Needham - was harnessed. They were thrown from the aircraft at about 200 feet. Needham died at the scene. Warneford died on the way to hospital.

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Image: Public domain

Reginald Warneford: From Darjeeling to Hendon

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Le Miroir, Public domain. Warneford was born on 15 October 1891 in Darjeeling, in British India, into the world of colonial railway and merchant families. After his family returned to India he was educated at the English College in Simla - now Shimla, the old summer capital - then apprenticed in the Merch...

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Image: Le Miroir | Public domain

Reginald Warneford: Veurne and the Roving Commission

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit photographe de presse inconnu, Public domain. On 7 May 1915, Warneford was posted to 1 Wing of the RNAS at Veurne on the Belgian coast. The war over Flanders that spring involved low-level bombing of German troops, machine-gun attacks on guns and trenches, and the new and uncertain business of fighting other aircraft. Warnef...

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Image: photographe de presse inconnu | Public domain

Reginald Warneford: Seven June, Above Ghent

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wernervc, CC BY-SA 3.0. In the early hours of 7 June 1915, Warneford intercepted LZ 37 over Belgium as it returned from a raid. He climbed above the airship in his Morane-Saulnier monoplane and dropped six small bombs onto its upper surface from short range. The hydrogen ignited. The Zeppelin broke apar...

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Image: Wernervc | CC BY-SA 3.0

Reginald Warneford: Ten Days

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bain, Public domain. The Victoria Cross was gazetted within 36 hours - one of the fastest in the award's history. Newspapers carried his face. He was 23 years old, the colonial boy with the swagger, the pilot who had brought down a German monster. On 17 June, exactly ten days after the action over Gh...

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Image: Bain | Public domain

Reginald Warneford: Brompton and Ghent

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Edwardx, CC BY-SA 3.0. He was buried at Brompton Cemetery in London on 21 June 1915 in front of thousands of mourners. The grave lies in front of the eastern colonnade. His Victoria Cross is held at the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton in Somerset. In Ghent, the street near where LZ 37 came down was r...

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Image: Edwardx | CC BY-SA 3.0